Steve Vai is a creative and innovative composer, guitarist and musician. Okay, that’s an obvious statement if I’ve ever written one. He’s changed the way people write within the instrumental guitar genre, his use of rhythm, effects and melodic development have helped to shape the modern guitar vocabulary and his Jem guitar series and Carvin amps have reshaped the custom gear market for the past 25 years. one
If you’re a guitarist, like the guitar, or have heard of the guitar, than you’re probably excited for the Guitar Masters tour, which kicks off this October with dates throughout the Midwest and East Coast. Featuring guitar legend Eric Johnson, Fingerstyle guru Andy McKee and acoustic-guitar master Peppino D’Agostino, the tour is lining up to be the must see guitar event of the fall season, and possibly the entire year.
More often than not, it seems a musical group’s signature is defined by the vocalist up front. But as much as the legendary group Jethro Tull goes, Ian Anderson’s melodic grizzled vocals and flute gymnastics offered gripping definition, it’s the ripping crunch of Martin Barre’s lead guitar work and his ability to marinate Tull’s songs with emotional heft, are what turns our heads and grabs our guts with sinewy twists, turns and head-on collisions.
Forty-five years after releasing his debut album, The New Boss Guitar, jazz guitarist George Benson is still going strong. With the upcoming August 25, 2009, release date set for his latest studio album Songs And Stories, the ten-time Grammy winner pays tribute to some of his favorite songwriters and composers. Featuring an all-star line up that includes bassist Marcus Miller, guitarists Lee Ritenour and Toninho Horta, saxophonists Tom Scott and Gerald Albright, among others, Benson and company come together to produce an album that is not only a tribute to great songwriters, it is also a reflection of more than four decades of experience by one of jazz’s greatest instrumentalists and vocalists.
What can be better than performing music you love with some of the top musicians in the world, who are also some of your best friends? That’s a place guitarist, singer-songwriter extraordinaire, Steve Postell, finds himself with the new super group, The Immediate Family. Steve’s on board with the likes of Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, Waddy Wachtel and Russ Kunkel
Ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the top fifty bass guitar players of all time, Sklar can count coup on laying down bass lines on such well known tracks as: “You’ve Got a Friend” (James Taylor), “Running on Empty” (Jackson Browne), “No Other” (Gene Clark) and literally thousands more by the pantheon of Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famers.
To say that guitarist James Burton is busy would be a gross understatement. With his 70th birthday right around the corner, the Louisiana native shows no sign of slowing down. After a highly successful career as both a leader and a sideman spanning more than 50 years, most guitarists would be looking forward to hanging up the axe and enjoying some time off, but not Burton. Having recently returned from performing in Holland with the TCB band, he’s busy preparing for the
The word is out that some of the top session players in the world have formed a new group, The Immediate Family, and they’ve locked into keeping their fans up to date on what’s happening with them individually, as well as a together as they release new songs, work on a new video, and plan the release of a new album on the Quarto Valley Records label.
Mali-born guitarist Vieux Farka Touré’s musical inclinations come naturally. His father, Ali Farka Touré (1939 – 2006), was an internationally acclaimed musician who weaved together the complex rhythms and traditional style of Malian music with American blues
For those unfamiliar, there’s a new band in town called, The Immediate Family, that includes some of the finest musicians of our time. One of the five principals in the band is guitarist-producer-songwriter extraordinaire, Danny Kortchmar. Along with Waddy Wachtel (guitar/vocals), Leland Sklar (bass), Russ Kunkel (Percussion) and Steve Postell (guitar/vocals)
